Back in August, I blogged about the reality of the catastrophic water events that are happening right now around the country. The rains have yet to come and remedy this situation. In fact, it is getting worse. Currently fourteen communities are in danger of running out of water. I repeat, fourteen communities are running out of water! Over 30 million residents are affected by this catastrophic water shortage. If rains do not fall soon, many more communities will be in the same boat.
The Water Resources Control Board reported a few months ago that twenty eight communities were in danger of having a major water crisis. Since then, a few have come up with viable plans to get water to their community, but the other fourteen have yet to see the light of a solution. What are these residents to do when the water runs dry? Moving is an option, but what about their current residents? How will they be able to sell their current property and fund a move? Who would purchase property in a dry community? These are many questions that will need answers sooner rather than later.
Faced with a complete loss of water is a situation that many California communities are not familiar with. There is no protocol on what to do when the water completely dries up and millions of people are left with dry wells and nothing coming out of the faucet. What will happen to the residents, the businesses? The simple fact is nothing can live without water. Water is life essential for communities and their residents to survive and thrive.
The New York Times once described the now desolate area in California the “food basket” of America. Eating a healthy salad in mid winter will be a thing of the past in parts of the country that freeze over during cold months. The price of a salad will increase as the ingredients will be difficult to find if these communities dry up and stop producing produce.
Some Communities Find Solutions
A few communities that boarder with Oregon are finding short term and long term solutions to water woes. The city of Montague constructed an irrigation ditch that is bringing water from a lake 25 miles away though a once dry ditch. Currently, smaller communities are the ones hit the hardest with the water shortage. But, if the drought continues, many more larger cities and locations will suffer the same fate. Tom Quinn, the executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies stated to the New York Times; “If this drought keeps on going, some larger, more sophisticated communities are going to be in trouble next year.”
What Happens to Mountains During a Severe Drought?
What happens to the landscape, including the mountains when the water runs dry? Good question. Where are the answers? Since 2013 the Science journal reports that the Western portion of the US has lost over 240 gigatons or one billion tons of water. That is literally enough water to cover 75,000 football stadiums. This is causing major geographical shifts. Mountains are rising out of the ground, and it is having a negative effect on the gravitational field for the entire state. “100 percent of the state is in drought, with 82 percent of the land designated as in ‘extreme’ or ‘exceptional’ drought, the highest levels on the U.S. Drought Monitor scale,” explains the National Journal. “Thirty-seven million people are affected by the drought.”
Drought and its Effect on Water Quality
As I mentioned in the August post on Catastrophic Water Events-Ohio and Lake Mead the lack of water brings forth a rainbow of water contamination problems to every area faced with losing their entire water supply. Certainly residents affected by these catastrophic water events will need to purchase a high quality home water filtration system to combat the contaminants that will no doubt infiltrate their water supply with a vengeance.